How to Design for Augmented and Virtual Reality
How This Course Will Help Your Career
What You’ll Learn
- How to design for AR and VR from novel and unique perspectives
- The three keys to designing for this new medium: Storytelling, Imagineering, and Improvisation
- How to enhance immersion in order to improve your users’ experience
- How to create 3D personas to improve spatial navigation, layout, and content
- How to incorporate the brain’s responses to 3D interfaces by taking visual, auditory, and kinesthetic interactions into account
- Practical tips to avoid known UX problems when designing for AR and VR
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are quickly becoming huge areas of technology, with giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google competing to provide the next big AR or VR experience. Statista predicts that the worldwide user base for AR and VR will reach 443 million by 2025, meaning that it is becoming increasingly important for UX designers to know how to create amazing VR and AR experiences. Designing for 3D experiences will require completely new ways of thinking about UX design—and the question is, are you well equipped to tackle this new field of design?
The good news is that while AR and VR hardware and software is changing dramatically, UX principles and techniques for 3D interaction design will remain consistent. It’s just that new opportunities and sensitivities will present themselves to designers and developers. This course will give you the 3D UX skills to remain relevant in the next decade and beyond. You’ll be able to create immersive experiences that tap into the novel opportunities that AR and VR generate. For example, you will need to bring together key UX concepts such as emotional design, social UX, and gamification in order to create an immersive AR or VR creation.
AR and VR need to be easy to use in order to provide users with experiences that wow. Avoiding common usability mistakes and applying the principles of storytelling will help you carefully craft 3D experiences that delight, intrigue, amuse, and most of all evoke the response you intended. You’ll need to engage users in first-person narratives by making use of spatially dynamic UI’s, including gaze, gesture, movement, speech, and sound—often used in combination.
During the course, you will come across many examples and case studies from spatial and holographic interface designers. You will master how to create immersive 3D content for AR and VR that provides rich user experiences. The course offers exercises and challenges throughout, all aimed at helping you and/or your team practice your emerging or existing AR/VR skills. You will be taught by Frank Spillers, who is a distinguished speaker, author, and internationally respected senior usability practitioner with over 15 years of experience in the field.
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Is This Course Right for You?
This course is aimed at designers, developers, and content creators who are looking to learn or enhance their skills when designing for AR and VR. Despite this being one of our advanced courses, it contains beginner, intermediate, and advanced material. Unlike other AR and VR design courses that dwell on introductory content, we quickly move beyond the basics in order to give you strategies and techniques to develop your 3D UX design skills.
This course will appeal to:
- UX designers, interaction designers, and 3D UI designers keen on learning how to create immersive 3D content
- Unity developers and 3D developers who want to to create user-focused experiences
- Product managers interested in, or working with, the development of AR/VR products
- Storytellers, content creators, and filmmakers who want to use their storytelling abilities to create engaging AR/VR content
- Marketers interested in taking advantage of AR/VR technology in their marketing strategy
- Creative designers, artists, and entrepreneurs who are looking to set themselves apart by tapping into the new market for AR/VR content
Courses in the Interaction Design Foundation are designed to contain comprehensive, evidence-based content, while ensuring that the learning curve is never too steep. All participants will have the opportunity to share ideas, seek help with tests, and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.
Learn and Work with a Global Team of Designers
You’ll join a global community and work together to improve your skills and career opportunities. Connect with helpful peers and make friends with like-minded individuals as you push deeper into the exciting and booming industry of design.Lessons in This Course
- Each week, one lesson becomes available.
- There’s no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
- Estimated learning time: 33 hours 36 mins spread over 7 weeks .
Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 39 mins.
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0.1: Welcome and Introduction (10 mins)
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0.2: An introduction to courses from the Interaction Design Foundation (37 mins)
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0.3: How to Earn Your Course Certificate (16 mins)
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0.4: Expand your network and grow your skills in our online forums (5 mins)
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0.5: Meet and learn from design professionals at an upcoming meet-up (1 min)
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0.6: Gain Timeless Skills Through Courses From the Interaction Design Foundation (21 mins)
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0.7: Mandatory vs. Optional Lesson Items (7 mins)
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0.8: A Mix Between Video-Based and Text-Based Lesson Content (6 mins)
Lesson 1: Getting in the Space (3D UX)
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 50 mins.
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1.1: Imagination Is What It's All About (12 mins)
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1.2: The Challenge for 3D Interaction Design (16 mins)
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1.3: AR/VR/MR Distinctions (44 mins)
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1.4: Designing for Presence (40 mins)
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1.5: Discussion Exercise (6 mins)
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1.6: First 30 Seconds Experience (22 mins)
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1.7: Discussion Exercise (6 mins)
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1.8: Exploring Spatial Interfaces (45 mins)
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1.9: Storytelling Essentials (29 mins)
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1.10: Improv Essentials (38 mins)
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1.11: Discussion Exercise (6 mins)
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1.12: Imagineering Essentials (31 mins)
Lesson 2: Getting familiar with 3D UIs
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 33 mins.
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2.1: Specifying Your Experience Design Plan (30 mins)
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2.2: Discussion Exercise (7 mins)
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2.3: The Reality of Your User's Brain in 3D (38 mins)
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2.4: The Reality of Your User's Brain in 3D: Gaze and Gesture (32 mins)
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2.5: The Reality of User's Brain in 3D: Voice (19 mins)
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2.6: Your Designer's Brain in 3D: What You Need to Know? (26 mins)
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2.7: Transitioning From 2D UI's to 3D UI's (58 mins)
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2.8: Discussion Exercise (6 mins)
Lesson 3: Designing 3D Story Flow
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 14 mins.
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3.1: Storytelling in VR and MR: 7 Essential Musts (46 mins)
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3.2: Exercise (33 mins)
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3.3: Discussion Exercise (6 mins)
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3.4: Use Narrative Essentials (50 mins)
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3.5: Plotting Asynchronous Narrative (57 mins)
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3.6: Developing Your Personas (43 mins)
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3.7: Discussion Exercise (6 mins)
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3.8: Designing Around Hardware and Technology Limits (16 mins)
Lesson 4: How to Wireframe 3D Interactions
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 5 hours 31 mins.
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4.1: Developing Your Interaction Models for VR, MR, AR (53 mins)
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4.2: Holographic Interface Storyboarding Techniques (1 hour 5 mins)
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4.3: Wireframe Example: The Document Reviewer (11 mins)
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4.4: Wireframing Immersive Interactions (1 hour 53 mins)
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4.5: 3D Wireframing Tools (38 mins)
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4.6: 3D Prototyping Activity (48 mins)
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4.7: Open Discussion (6 mins)
Lesson 5: Social VR and Collaborative Virtual Environments
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours 56 mins.
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5.1: 5 Important Social UI Characteristics (46 mins)
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5.2: Communication, Coordination and Collaboration (43 mins)
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5.3: 3 Tips for Better Social UX (49 mins)
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5.4: Social VR: Facebook Case Study (35 mins)
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5.5: Discussion Exercise (6 mins)
Lesson 6: Bringing It All Together
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 7 hours 37 mins.
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6.1: Designing Your 3D Experience (2 hours 3 mins)
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6.2: Defining Spatial Interactions (1 hour 23 mins)
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6.3: Spatial UI Considerations (55 mins)
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6.4: 3D Navigation (49 mins)
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6.5: Designing Immersive Content (32 mins)
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6.6: Holographic UI Design (1 hour 4 mins)
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6.7: Gamification for Any Immersive Experience (48 mins)
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6.8: Discussion Exercise (6 mins)
Lesson 7: Validating Your 3D Experience
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 17 mins.
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7.1: Evaluating Your Design (41 mins)
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7.2: Discussion Exercise (7 mins)
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7.3: Measuring Presence (1 hour 8 mins)
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7.4: Tools for Evaluating VR/AR Experience (32 mins)
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7.5: Inclusive Design: Accessibility, Gender, Localization (52 mins)
Lesson 8: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up
To be scheduled.
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8.1: Get Your Course Certificate (1 min)
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8.2: Course Evaluation (1 min)
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8.3: Continue Your Professional Growth (1 min)
Learning Paths
This course is part of 3 learning paths:
How Others Have Benefited
Laura Gieco, Australia
“The course was a great introduction for me to the world of VR/AR. The instructor is very engaging, knowledgeable and gives lots of examples from the real world and his own experience. I also enjoyed doing the in class exercises and little challenges. Definitely helped me to learn how to think when designing VR/AR.”
daksh sahni, United States
“Loved the multi modal teaching method—video, exercises and assignments. The community in the course was also very strong and everyone contributed a lot—I learnt a lot from other peers as well. The instructor is very effective, knowledgable and really hit on the topics that I needed to learn in this course! In fact, I have been interviewing and some of the answers to the questions the hiring managers asked me came from what I learnt in this course.”
Björn Rohles, Luxembourg
“Frank Spillers has a very engaging teaching style and profound knowledge. It is always a pleasure to listen to him discuss the course topics. In this one, there were a lot of brilliant examples from different fields (e.g., games, holograms, business contexts, accessibility…), which made it easy to follow the course even without much experience in XR.”
How It Works
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Control your learning.
Lessons are self-paced so you’ll never be late for class or miss a deadline. Learning and life, hand in hand.
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Earn Course Certificates.
Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to show you’ve put in the work.
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Advance your career.
Grow your professional knowledge by watching Master Classes, networking within our UX community, and more.
Start Advancing Your Career Now
Join us to take “How to Design for Augmented and Virtual Reality”. Take other courses at no additional cost. Make a concrete step forward in your career path today.
Advance my career nowFrequently Asked Questions
When I finish a course, do I have to pay extra to get my certificate?
Can I take more than one course at a time?
With a Student membership, you can take a maximum of two courses at the same time. You can still take as many courses as you would like – free of extra charges – just as long as you finish or drop them so that you don’t have more than two ongoing courses.
I missed the enrollment, and now the course is closed. What can I do?
Don't worry if you missed the course. We will re-run it shortly. One of the reasons we continually open and close courses is in order to control the classroom size.
Networking is a large part of our value proposition, so we want just the right number of people inside the courses. That is also why we display the "XX % percent booked" on our course icons.
Do I have to be online at an exact time to study?
No. You can set your own study schedule. There are no "live sessions" since we have members from all timezones around the world. We are a truly global community.
Thus, once you are enrolled, you can take all the time to complete a given course. Every "classroom" in each course will never close, so you’ll have permanent access to your classmates and your course material (as well as your own answers).
Will I receive a Course Certificate?
Yes. You will get a digital industry-recognized course certificate every time you complete a course. Certificates never expire and can be saved as a .jpg file, so it's easy to be shared. Also, there is no limit to how many certificates you can earn during your membership.
You can see an example of a Course Certificate at the bottom of the Course Catalogue.
I have answered questions in a lesson; when will they be marked/graded?
I have updated my name, but my course certificate is not updated — how can I change it?
Don't worry; once you change your name, your certificate will be updated automatically in the next 48 hours.
I have started my course later than the specified date, are my answers still going to be marked?
Sure! We will be marking all your answers for as long as you are an active member.
How are courses graded?
For how long will I have access to the course materials?
You will have access to the course materials for the entire duration of your membership. So, if you pay for a one-year membership, you will have access for one year. Renewing your membership for a second year means you will have access to one more year, and so on.
New lessons are starting before I have completed the previous lesson(s). Am I going to be locked out of these unfinished lessons?
No, you will not be locked out of any lesson or course. You will have access to all course materials throughout your membership, so there is no pressure to keep at the same pace as the specified lesson release dates.
All we recommend is that you try to stick to the same schedule as other participants. The reason is they may have moved on to other lessons, thereby meaning you could miss out on the social aspects of the course(s).
Do I have a specific date to award my certificates?
No, you can generate your certificate as soon as you score at least 70% of the total course points.
When will I receive my Course Certificate?
Course certificates will be given to participants when they have scored more than 70% or more of the total course points. For example, if a course contains ten lessons each with ten questions, you will receive a course certificate when the instructor has awarded you at least 70 points (70% of the total course points).
There is no specified time that certificates will be awarded — instead, they are given to participants as and when they have answered all questions, even if this is long after the official end date.
How do I add my Certificate to my LinkedIn profile?
Below is a step-by-step guide on how to add your Interaction Design Foundation course(s) to your LinkedIn profile:
Log in to your LinkedIn account, then go to your profile.
Below your profile description, click on the button Add profile section, choose Recommended and then select Add license or certification.
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3. In the following fields add:
Name – Course name
Issuing organization – The Interaction Design Foundation
Check the field “This credential does not expire”
Issue date - Input the date written on your certificate (e.g., May 2021)
Credential ID – Your membership ID number – it's written on your certificate. (For non-members, you can leave this field blank or, if you prefer, insert the certificate ID, which can be extracted from the certificate link. This ID will begin with "mcc_" and be followed by a string of numbers and letters.")
Credential URL: Input the certificate URL provided on your course page
4. Click the Save button.
Congratulate yourself! Earning the certificate is a great accomplishment and now you can share it with the world!
How do I add the Interaction Design Foundation Membership Certificate to my LinkedIn Profile?
Below is a step-by-step guide on how to add your Interaction Design Foundation course(s) to your LinkedIn profile:
Log in to your LinkedIn account, then go to your profile.
Below your profile description, click on the button Add profile section, choose Recommended and then select Add license or certification.
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3. In the following fields add:
Name – Membership Certificate
Issuing organization – The Interaction Design Foundation
Check the field “This credential does not expire”
Issue date - Input the date when you joined our community (e.g., May 2019)
Credential ID – Your membership ID number (it's written on your certificate)
Credential URL: Input the certificate URL provided on your profile page
4. Click the Save button.
It is as simple as that. Now, anyone who visits your profile can see your certificate!
How much will I have to pay for the courses?
After you pay for your membership, you can take as many courses as you want with no additional costs. There are no further charges on top of the membership fee.
Do you provide mostly beginners' or more advanced courses?
How long does it take to complete a course?
You will need approximately 5-8 hours to complete one lesson. Each course has between 3 and 16 lessons.
Once enrolled in a course, you will gain access to a new lesson each week, which you are free to complete without any deadlines and no end date, either.
I scored less than 70% in a course, so I didn't qualify for a certificate. Can I try again?
Yes! Everyone's learning journey looks different, and we'd never stop our members from trying again. To retake a course, just follow these steps:
1. Go to your profile and click on the relevant course you'd like to retake.
2. Underneath your progress bar, you'll see a phrase "UX Courses" with an arrow (>) pointing to a clickable landing page of that course. Click on that link.
3. Once on the landing page, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. You'll see a red button, which you can simply click to drop the course.
4. Head back to our main list of UX Courses, and re-enroll yourself in the course. You'll all set to try again!
Please note that when you drop a course, you will lose any answers and progress you submitted. We advise that you screenshot or save any answers you'd like to reuse.
In some cases, we can open up lessons for members who are retaking a course, so that they don't have to wait for familiar lessons to unlock each week. If you'd like us to do this for you, please get in touch with our support team at hello@interaction-design.org, and we can help you out.
How do I drop a course?
To drop a course, the following should be done:
1. Visit your profile page and click the 'continue lesson...' button for the course you want to drop.
2. Click the course name link breadcrumb near the top of the page that opens (this only appears in unlocked lessons, not upcoming lessons)
3. Click the red 'drop my course now' button at the bottom of the page that opens
